The Knock

In the spring of my junior year of high school, a boy I’d had my eye on for a while—I’ll call him Henry—began turning his attention my way, too. He played an instrument in band, so technically we were in the same class every day, but it wasn’t until we shared another class that we had small opportunities to get to know each other better. I found him cute, outgoing, and enthusiastic. He LOVED Chuck Mangione—toward whom I was indifferent—but I loved that he loved music. I was only vaguely aware of his personal life, so when he started flirting with me, I reciprocated, thinking he was free. It turned out he was breaking another girl’s heart to be with me. I wasn’t thrilled about that, and also, I was smitten.

Henry and I officially started something the night of our school’s spring talent show and we dove into being together, taking every opportunity to be in each others’ presence, to talk. We walked the halls together during lunch break, and of course still saw each other during our two classes. He had a car, which improved our capacity to spend time together. We had our first kiss in the least awkward way possible; he just leaned in right before we got out of the car to go somewhere and seemed to enjoy kissing me. I enjoyed it, too. He kissed me like a guy who’d been wanting to for a while. 

Not long after we started dating, I got a bad enough cold that I stayed home from school. Early in the afternoon, a vehicle pulled up. When I looked out the window, I was horrified to see Henry’s car parked in front of our house. I briefly considered not answering when he knocked—I was already practiced at pretending I wasn’t home if I didn’t want to speak to the evangelists or salespeople at the door. But he knew I was here because I hadn’t been in class, and apparently he’d skipped to come see me. I suppose some girlfriends would be touched, but I found it an awful idea. I was in my pajamas. I hadn’t showered or washed my hair or put on makeup. As I understood it, these ablutions kept girls from being truly hideous. All the ads stressed the importance of attending to these tasks, an idea I resisted until there was a new boyfriend at my door. 

I watched as Henry—and then his brother!—got out of the car. I decided I simply wouldn’t let them in. I stood back from the door until the knock sounded. I waited. Maybe I could get out of this still. But then he knocked again and said my name. 

“Henry, I’m here but don’t come in. I have a cold. I look awful.”

He pushed back: he wanted to see me, it couldn’t be that bad, he came all this way, just for a minute. The more he talked, the more ridiculous I felt not letting him in. But I was truly in a bind. I was sure that allowing myself to be seen like this had the power to put Henry off. Finally, I said, “Okay, I’ll let you guys in but I’m going to put a blanket over my head.” I grabbed the blanket off the couch where I’d been reading, put it over my head, and unlocked the door. “Come in,” I invited them in my now-muffled voice.

“Oh, come on,” Henry wheedled. He and and his brother stepped inside. “Really?” He reached for the bottom edge of the blanket and tried to lift it off. I grabbed fistfuls of it to keep it safely covering me: our first power struggle. 

“I’m serious. You can come in but I’m going to stay under this blanket.” I went and sat on the couch. In my imagination, he and his brother looked at each other, perplexed. They perched on the edge of our other couch for a while but when it became clear that I wasn’t playing some flirty game, to my great relief, they eventually left. 

Only now do I wonder why it didn’t occur to me that, however horrified Henry might have been to see me au naturale with a dripping nose and congested sinuses, he might have been more likely to have second thoughts about a girlfriend who draped a blanket over her head and wouldn’t be budged from removing it. I’m sad at how convinced I was that his crush on me was so fragile it could be reversed by a glimpse of my unwashed self—kind of like Medusa: All it takes is one look… Now I look at 16-year-old girls and, to a one, they are gorgeous with youth. 

But the real point isn’t, Was I as hideous as I thought? It’s, Where did I learn that men were so fickle their feelings could turn on a dime if you didn’t look as good as they thought you should? I’ve had the good fortune of finding men who liked me for all sorts of things. What kind of guy would Henry have been if he’d run for the hills to see me rumpled? We had a lovely spring and summer, and then he moved. Only to Springfield, but it might as well have been Seattle. I suspect he left town for various reasons—boredom with our small town, a readiness to try something new—but I also think he wanted to find another girlfriend, someone more pliable than I’d proved to be, maybe someone more normal than my blanket-wearing self. I missed him for a long time.

(P.S. Sorry for the ads you might be seeing. I’m in the process of upgrading so you won’t have to look at them.)